The present invention relates to a system for automatically processing setting of portable telephone additional services, and to a portable telephone fitted with an automatic response function, for storing information and setting portable telephone additional services in accordance to speech guidance from a service center given when a user calls the service center dedicated for portable telephones through the portable telephone.
Traditionally, there have been portable telephone additional services as services of portable telephones. Information might be stored and the additional service of the portable telephone might been set by calling to the service center dedicated for portable telephones from the portable telephone and by manipulating the portable telephone in accordance to speech guidance given from the service center. In concrete, there has been a character message service for sending a character message to a specified person similarly to a pager.
In the character message service, the user registers a telephone number of a receiver and a character message to a character message center via the portable telephone or a fixed telephone. Next, the character message center transmits the registered character message to the telephone number of the receiver.
This character message service allows information to be transmitted even when communication is impossible like when the receiver stays at the place where radio cannot reach or the power is not turned on when the portable telephone of the receiver is put into the state in which it can receive calls.
The user has registered and set intended information in the service center by calling the character message center and by repeatedly manipulating the portable telephone in accordance to the speech guidance of the character message center given by listening thereto in the character message service of the past.
Thus, the user had to manipulate the portable telephone in accordance to the speech guidance of the service center in the character message service of this type in particular in the past. However, it is difficult to correctly listen to the speech guidance of the service center in the state in which the ambient noise is large such as a train. Still more, there has been a problem that the key manipulation has been cumbersome to make in accordance to the speech guidance.
It is an object of the invention to solve the above-mentioned problems by providing a method for automatically processing setting of portable telephone additional services and a portable telephone fitted with an automatic response function which allow the manipulation for registering and setting information to a service center to be simplified and the portable telephone additional service to be given without listening to any speech guidance.
The following processes are implemented in an inventive method for automatically processing setting of portable telephone additional services. Audio signal data transmitted from a service center is compared with and discriminated from audio signal data for speech recognition stored in advance in a memory as the first processing step. Then, it is discriminated whether or not the audio signal data is a request signal for setting a portable telephone additional service from the service center on the basis of the result of the comparing and discriminating process. Finally, when the audio signal data is the request signal for setting the portable telephone additional service, a process for transmitting information to the service center and a terminating process are automatically implemented.
An inventive portable telephone fitted with an automatic response function comprises a control unit and a speech recognizing unit. The speech recognizing unit compares audio signal data transmitted from a service center with audio signal data for speech recognition stored in advance in a memory to discriminate the identity of the both data. Then, the control unit discriminates whether or not the audio signal data is a request signal for setting a portable telephone additional service from the service center on the basis of the result of the comparing and discriminating process and when the audio signal data is the request signal for setting the portable telephone additional service, it automatically implements a process for transmitting information to the service center and a terminating process.
The specific nature of the invention, as well as other objects, uses and advantages thereof, will clearly appear from the following description and from the accompanying drawings in which like numerals refer to like parts.